Writing Sample: Inbound Marketing

5 Tips for Writing Calls to Action that Work

The truth about Internet visitors is that they can be motivated to act with effective calls to action. It isn’t enough to provide a telephone number and a contact form. Unless you ask them to take action, it’s most likely that they will leave your website before they understand the value of your offerings. Here are some tips for creating calls to action that work.

1. Decide what you want your visitors to do.

Do you want your visitors to complete an online purchase of a product? Or, is there an action you want them to take to lead them to becoming a customer? An action might be signing up for a newsletter, downloading an e-book or scheduling a free consultation, for example.

Define a conversion process that will take people from being casual visitors to customers. Once you understand how you want your Internet visitors to move through that conversion process, you know what calls to action you need to put in place.

2. Give your visitors a “next step.”

Oftentimes a visitor on your website will think that it’s interesting, but won’t explore long enough to discover how to learn more or make a purchase. That’s where the call to action comes in. You want it to be very clear to your visitors what they should do next and why they should do it.

3. Make the next step irresistible.

If you want a visitor to buy from you or get on your mailing list, you need to make your call to action short, to the point, and full of benefits.

A link called “Learn More” isn’t a call to action. It’s a way to direct visitors to get more information, but clicking on a Learn More button rarely leads the visitor to action. Buy Now is a call to action, but it needs to be linked to a benefit statement. If you can add urgency to that benefit statement, you’ll get more clicks.

Here’s an example: Become a better manager with our “Management Tricks” e-book. This special price is only good until Saturday, so Buy Now!

4. Make the call to action stand out.

Put your call to action above the fold. If visitors need to scroll to see it, you’ll reduce its effectiveness. Use bright colors. When you design your website, it’s a good idea to use one color only for calls to action to let visitors know when there’s something of value they can do right now.

5. Monitor effectiveness.

Keep track of traffic to the page with the call to action. Determine how many of your visitors are actually taking you up on your offer. If the numbers aren’t good, conduct tests to determine how you can improve the click rate. Restructure the look of the offer to determine how to get more clicks. Review the offer to determine how you can make it more attractive.

If you’re not using calls to action, or if the calls you’re using aren’t helping you reach your goals, use these tips to increase your website’s lead-generation results.